The master builder, Halvard, asks of his true apprentice, Hilda, what is sweetness? Hilda laughs, what is sweetness? Why, dear Halvard, don’t you remember the old song, Cuckoo Bird? And she sings the line, my horses ain't hungry, they won’t eat your hay. Ah, yes, the master builder says, the sweet honesty of refusal as it is expressed within the picaresque, but what of those who cannot help themselves? Why don’t you say what is on your mind Halvard? He answers her, Herdal spoke to me of a patient who exemplifies the rule, where there is a way, there is no will. The patient was an IVDU upon whom they kept a constant watch because of the PICC line he’d had inserted - as soon as it was patent he was looking to escape. For the addict, the PICC, because it extends to the superior vena cava, far surpasses his mainline, even before it has collapsed. The PICC is his royal road to heavenly sweetness, a veritable metaxú of his self and the cosmos - who could be surprised at his eagerness to live a life so positioned with the blessed metaxú sticking out his neck? I heard a similar story, says the apprentice, a resident of the nursing home, an old lady, secretly orders a daily delivery of a bottle of vodka but because alcohol is not permitted by the institution, she arranges with the driver to meet her on the corner. The walk to and from the corner is her only physical activity, and evading the no alcohol rule is her only mental stimulation. Hilda the apprentice ends the conversation with the old familiar saying on the unidirectionality of energy exchanges up through the trophic pyramid: in compulsion there is a sweetness, and in sweetness there is only compulsion.
